Several officials from the Ungheni Territorial Food Safety Directorate of ANSA, as well as businessmen, are under criminal investigation in several cases involving passive corruption, active corruption and bribery. More specifically, they are being investigated for fraudulently issuing dozens of phytosanitary and sanitary-veterinary certificates to economic agents, announces the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA).

During the documentation, it was found that from December 2021 until now, the acting head of the Ungheni Territorial Food Safety Directorate, in complicity with two subordinates in charge of Plant Health, allegedly set up a scheme to extort goods and money from economic agents in exchange for phytosanitary certificates, allowing the export of products without a control of the goods.

“The sums of money allegedly received systematically from exporters ranged from 3,000 to 5,000 lei, and the documents were issued without checks being carried out to prove that the goods had been inspected, including outside working hours and on rest days, when the computer programme does not allow this.

In a similar period of time, within the same corruption scheme, two other heads of the Directorate, responsible for the management of the animal health sector, are said to have issued, for bribes, veterinary certificates to economic agents who took to the slaughterhouse animals not registered in the single registration system,” CNA announced.

In order to give them provenance, according to the CNA, the officials would have used the data of animals identified and registered by other individuals in the “Animal Identification and Traceability System” to which they had access. The veterinary certificates, issued illegally, allowed economic agents and individuals to sell meat in specialised markets or deliver it to public institutions, including kindergartens.

The CNA also published a recording of a discussion on how phytosanitary and veterinary certificates were issued to economic agents by officials from the Territorial Food Safety Directorate in Ungheni in exchange for bribes:

– Now he has to give me about 10 000 lei.
– Wow!
– And that’s for two months, he has to give me 10,000 lei and that’s too much. Perhaps you could give us a discount, because you haven’t worked overtime yourself.
– I won’t work with you anymore if you don’t pay me…
– We all work here in a ‘hain, if I don’t do it, neither does Marin, he can’t do it without me, now he pays me and the others, because each document costs money, you know.
– Without a document, the wheat won’t get through.
– It won’t, of course it won’t, if I don’t get a certificate for it, the car won’t get past customs

Later, ANSA issued a statement announcing that it has taken note of the CNA’s communication about the involvement in corruption of employees of the Ungheni Territorial Directorate.

Thus, the management of the National Agency for Food Safety claims that it dissociates itself from employees who admit corrupt manifestations in their work and reiterates its commitment to continue its work in the spirit of legality, transparency, fairness and accountability, including declaring zero tolerance to acts of corruption. Therefore, the management of the National Agency for Food Safety states that it will provide full support and will actively cooperate with the prosecution body in the investigation of the employees of the Ungheni Territorial Directorate for Food Safety (covering also the Nisporeni district), in strict compliance with the provisions of the legislation in force.

“At the same time, individuals and legal entities are urged to report to the ANSA management (via e-mail at sesizare@ansa.gov.md) any deviation admitted in the process of examining applications and petitions by ANSA employees, to be investigated within the limits of legal provisions,” the note issued by ANSA reads.